Hey Justin, You sound like a prime candidate to take advantage of section 121121 qualifiers Must live in the home in the past 2 of the 5 years 24 months non consecutive required Must have owned the home for at least 2 years Only one spouse needs to meet the ownership testBoth spouses need to meet the use test Neither spouse has excluded a gain / used section 121 in the past two years Must file jointly for the 500k exclusion

This works because, for short-term rentals, the IRS rules allow income to be treated as non-passive if certain conditions are met, such as offering substantial services and meeting material participation tests.

Maybe Vrbo is doing more a/b testing.

It's where I cut my teeth and tested all my knowledge and skills set.

Does the request pass the sniff test? 

Testing them out see how it goes, but initial experience has been very good.

Yes you can you need to pass both tests. 7 days or less and the material participation test which I have outlined above 

The key is to test, test, test until it works.

It sounds like you are mashing a lot of different things together here.It does not matter at all if you have an LLC, or if you, or your wife is the owner - it doesn't change any of the tax positioning in the slightest.The test to be a qualified Real Estate Professional is at least 750 hours in real property trades or businesses AND  over 50% of your professional time. 

Recently, PM suddenly told me that this property needs "lead testing".My PM is not aware of this I already have 2-year lead certificate from the previous onwer AND assigned an inspector for lead inspection for me.